K’Ho ethnic-Slovakian couple prospers with coffee farm

Krajam Lim of the K’Ho ethnic group was born and raised in a farming family in Lac Duong town. In 2016 through an online English-learning forum, she met Marian Takac, a Slovakian IT engineer on a vacation in Nha Trang. They soon became a couple.

With the knowledge on roasting and grinding coffee learned in Nha Trang, in 2018 Lim and her husband convinced family members in Lac Duong to start farming clean coffee from the locally known Arabica variety.

On the family’s coffee farm, they set out to pick coffee berries that are completely ripe, as unripe berries or wrong classification can affect the coffee quality. Preliminary manual processing of Arabica is mainly through honey process, washing or air-drying.

To aid the drying process, a greenhouse system was built with movable windows and drying racks to keep the pulps clean. The greenhouse is equipped with temperature and humidity meters which the window and fan system is adjusted based on, to ensure the coffee is exposed to the best temperature.

In 2018, their two tons of finished products were regarded highly by friends and coffee lovers. Lim and her husband now work with 20 hectares of farmland in collaboration with local households.

In 2021, 6 tons of Arabica coffee from Langbiang mountain were exported to Germany and Slovakia. A smaller amount was consumed at coffee shops in HCMC and Hanoi.